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I was thinking about this on the way back from work today: what’s the end-user cost of (worthless) DRM? And I realized, well, it’s whatever it takes to get around it. So I decided to illustrate this with an example, using our monopoly cable provider and its BS DRM as the inspiration, since I’ve been trying to work this out. Let’s use a simple example. Cox, one of the worst companies on earth, is required by law to carry all local broadcast channels unencrypted over its cable network. They don’t, of course, and I’m pretty sure they’re breaking a lot of FCC regulations and at least a couple of laws, but that’s a story for another day. So I want to take a copy of an HD program (House, for example) with me on my iPhone to watch on the train to work. Top Gear is also on at the same time, so I want to record both shows and take them both with me when I go. And for the examples, I’m assuming you’re doing this for a year. Okay. Here’s how it would work in an ideal world.

I plug my iPhone into my DVR, and get a copy of the show automagically transferred over in a beautiful, iPhone-compatible H.264 format. Cost: cable ($50/month) + DVR ($25/month) + BS Cox Charges ($25/month) = $100/month = $1,200 for the year. Of course, that’s not reality. For one thing, Apple locks down transfers to the iPhone more securely than the Treasury does its gold (and I do have a bone to pick with Apple for that). For another, this solution comes free of charge with eternal life, unicorns and world peace. So, the reality is, you’re going to need something to talk to both the DVR and the iPhone. Enter a computer.

Okay, not that much more complicated, because by law, Cox is supposed to provide an unencrypted stream of local broadcast channels out of the DVR to any device that wants it over IEEE1394 (aka “FireWire”). Except, of course, they don’t. They encrypt everything, except the SD versions of Fox, NBC, ABC, PBS and CBS (and possibly Univision). So even though the cost of this is about $1,200 (for the cable + DVR) and $600 (for the computer) = $1,800 for the year, you can’t actually do this.

In fact, to do that simple scenario of recording Top Gear and House at the same time, here’s what I need to do:

I need to get two set top boxes (one per channel), two Hauppauge HD-PVRs (one per channel) to record the unencrypted component data, a beefy encoding machine, a network and my iTunes machine. Total cost? Cable: $1,600. HD-PVRs: $500. Encoding machine: $500. Network: (let’s assume I have this, otherwise) $100. Mac: $600. That tots up to a staggering $3,200, or $3,300 if I don’t have a network for one year. This is beyond my willingness to pay, and beyond most people’s technical skills. Can you imagine if your parents or aunts and uncles asked for a copy of the latest Top Gear and you told them this is what you had to do?

So what do most people do? Well, for a cost of $(amount spent on computer), they do this, because it’s simpler, easier and it just works, thus only causing DRM to harm those legitimate consumers:

And that, in a nutshell, is why DRM sucks.